Born Free Foundation


The Born Free Foundation is an international wildlife charity that campaigns to "Keep Wildlife in the Wild". It protects wild animals in their natural habitat, campaigns against the keeping of wild animals in captivity and rescues wild animals in need. It also promotes compassionate conservation, which takes into account the welfare of individual animals in conservation initiatives.
Born Free’s head office is located in Horsham, West Sussex, in south east England. It also has offices in Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa, with representatives in Sri Lanka and Australia.
In the year to 31 March 2017, the charity reported income of £4.3m.

Creation

In 1969, actors Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, who starred in the film Born Free, made the film An Elephant Called Slowly. This featured an elephant calf called Pole Pole who was given to London Zoo when filming finished.
In 1982, McKenna and Travers went to visit Pole Pole at London Zoo. After seeing her, they launched a campaign to get Pole Pole moved to somewhere more suitable and with other elephants for company. In 1983, it was agreed to move Pole Pole to Whipsnade Zoo, but following complications during the transfer, Pole Pole died.
Her death deeply affected McKenna and Travers, so in 1984 they launched Zoo Check with their eldest son Will Travers OBE. Zoo Check was renamed Born Free Foundation in 1991.
Virginia is currently a Trustee of Born Free and Will is Executive President.

Current work

Born Free manages or funds projects in more than 20 countries worldwide – across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. It focuses on ‘nine working priorities’: captive wild animal exploitation; trophy and canned hunting; wildlife trade; rescue, care, rehabilitation & release; human-wildlife co-existence and conservation; integrated wildlife protection; transboundary programmes; UK wildlife protection; and education.
It also has its own sanctuaries – two big cat rescue centres at , in South Africa, Ensessa Kotteh Wildlife Rescue, Conservation & Education Centre, in Ethiopia, and Bannerghatta tiger sanctuary, in India.

Current projects

The conservation projects Born Free supports or operates are:
The wildlife rescue and care projects Born Free supports or operates are: